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What the Supercars teams said: Sandown 500

By Thomas Miles

After the 60th anniversary Sandown 500, there was a lot to unpack, so what were the drivers and teams initial thoughts?

Triple Eight: P1 Will Brown/Scott Pye P2 Broc Feeney/Jamie Whincup P5 Craig Lowndes/Cooper Murray

It was close to a perfect day for Triple Eight, taking a record-extending eighth Sandown 500 with a crushing 1-2. The team led 138 of the 154 laps with Brown fending off Feeney in a thrilling finish despite the Bulls locking horns. To add the cherry on top, Lowndes and Murray charged from 18th to get the equal best wildcard result ever.

Stoked to get the win. It’s so cool. First, endurance round win, first Sandown 500 win. Cool to do it in my first year with Red Bull Ampol Racing. Yeah, it was exciting. There was so much going on. We were to-ing and froing throughout the race. Broc got in front of us, we got in front of him, he got in front of us, so it was a lot going on. We were pretty much racing each other, the whole race,” Brown said.

Pye Brown Feeney Whincup Russell Golding sandown 2024

Photo by Mark Horsburgh / LAT Images

“Unbelievable. My whole objective for this year is to put myself in a position where I’d have an opportunity for success in Red Bull Ampol Racing. To tick that off the list straight away is huge,” Pye said.

“I’m pumped for the team. A one, two and a fifth is unreal, so great for everyone. Will and Scotty did a great job all day. We certainly had the pace. It was pretty close at the end; I gave my everything,” Feeney said.

I couldn’t be happier. It was heart-in-the-mouth sort of stuff at the end there. I’ve got two hats. It was critical that we secured the one-two finish. It’s these results – getting a one-two in a race like this, it’s absolutely a result of everyone having the same goal in mind,” Whincup said.

“That feels like a win, to be honest. An amazing day with the whole Supercheap Auto Racing wildcard crew, Craig did an amazing job and gave me a really good spot and really good position with our strategy and just had to conserve the tyres and bring it home. But then after the restart towards the end, it was a bit sketchy as well, having Cam Waters behind me, giving me a little nudge, but I was more than prepared for it,” Murray said.

“I’ve got to give the credit to the team. They did a fantastic job through strategy, through pit stops. We had a couple of little bumps, but really at the end of the day, Cooper brought it home and it was a fantastic job. He looked after the tyre; he did the longest stints of the day,” Lowndes said.

PremiAir Nulon Racing: P3 James Golding/David Russell P12 Tim Slade/Cameron McLeod

PremiAir

Image: PremiAir

A day PremiAir will never forget finally standing on the podium after the mature Golding/Russell combination soared from 14th. Slade/McLeod had a tougher day, penalised for spinning Boys, but still fell only 3s from the top 10.

“It was a bloody awesome day, to finish P3, it is just incredible. I can’t thank Peter and Carmen enough for giving me the opportunity, and everyone on the team for all the hard work. We have been working hard this year and getting really close, and I am absolutely stoked for it,” Golding said.

“It is very rewarding for me not only to team up with Jimmy and see him get his first podium but also the first for the team as well. To see Jimmy’s stints, even at the end when the pressure was on, was very good and it was great to be a contributor. I was happy with my stints as well,” Russell said.

“On the start I don’t think the line locker worked and I felt like the car was creeping so I wasn’t able to load the clutch, so we will have to look at that and see what happened there. We only dropped one spot. Then struggled with a driver change and Camy got a drive through so we were behind most of the day and struggled a bit with the car. We had decent enough speed and ended up seventh (before that last stop) but then we had a problem with the right rear and dropped back,” Slade said.

“I am pretty happy with how I performed lap time wise, but it is a bit of a shame about the contact and drive through penalty that I got, and that last pit stop. Tim is obviously feeling it a lot more than me. I am pretty happy though with the way I performed during the stint, minus hitting (Boys) off. I was getting hustled off a lot and he had hit me off the last two corners by bombing me hard and having me off at the exit. I didn’t mean to hit him off, but I wasn’t going to be easy on him either,” McLeod said.

Grove Racing: P4 Matt Payne/Garth Tander DNF Richie Stanaway/Dale Wood

Payne

Image: Rebecca Hind/Revved Photography

The Allan Moffat tribute Mustangs were running in formation early before Stanaway’s engine expired. Payne and Tander were podium contenders throughout and fell 2s short of Golding as lead Mustang.

“We were close with Matty Payne and Garth Tander, but not close enough. Matt had a very solid day and it was good to be the top Ford finisher. The frustrating thing was that we put a freshly rebuilt engine into the car for Richie Stanaway and it had a catastrophic failure that stopped the car. The speed in the cars is good and I feel good with the preparation heading to Bathurst. We certainly will be contenders there,” Stephen Grove said.

Tickford: P6 Cameron Waters/James Moffat P13 Thomas Randle/Tyler Everingham

Randle

Image: Mark Horsburgh

Another slow start from the front row cost Waters track position and so did a small off track moment in the penultimate stint, but still battled to sixth. After a poor qualifying Randle tried something different by pitting the earliest and had a 5s penalty for a clash with Reynolds/Luff but still rose nine spots.

“Not the day we hoped for but we threw absolutely everything at it today. Moff did an awesome job just didn’t quite have the car speed or the tyre life. P6 in the end — could of been a bit higher but its okay, we will work out what we did right and wrong this weekend and make sure we come back at Bathurst swinging,” Waters said.

“That was pretty bloody eventful. We went for a pit stop at lap 20 to try something different then the safety car came out lap 21 — so that wasn’t ideal, we went back to well last last. Tyler did a mega job in his stints. The car was super quick so to finish P13 in the end considering how the race panned out for us, I don’t think its too bad,” Randle said.

“Was a pretty busy race, there was a lot going on. Think we’ve got a lot of positives to take out of this and had pace all day long so we’re heading into bathurst pretty strong and I look forward to it,” Everingham said.

Walkinshaw Andretti United: P7 Chaz Mostert/Lee Holdsworth P15 Ryan Wood/Fabian Coulthard

Mostert

Image: Mark Horsburgh

A costly race for WAU’s championship hopes with a Holdsworth spin restricting Mostert to seventh after they ran an inverse strategy. After a wild ride in the Shootout, Wood was hit by a slow tyre change that cost him a top 10.

“I was probably pretty lucky to be honest. I kind of wanted to pit there at the end, but bit of confusion for us, so I ended up staying out, and then, it obviously went time certain, so I survived on a bit of a slightly older tyre than the guys around us. Our car was really fast in clean air, but today just wasn’t our day. Just too many mistakes, and we just didn’t want it enough today. If this one stings, it gets us very motivated for the next one [Bathurst] and we’ll look forward to that,” Mostert said.

I made a mistake today, so I feel really bad for Chaz and the team. Everyone did a great job today to get us back into the position we did, just wish it didn’t have to be that hard,” Holdsworth said.

First enduro under the belt, and there was a heap to take from it. The end result doesn’t reflect the weekend we had to be honest, so there was still a heap of positives to take from it.,” Wood said.

Tricky end to what was a really solid weekend to be honest. Woody did a great job this weekend, and it was great to be back doing some laps in race trim.,” Coulthard said.

Team 18: P8 David Reynolds/W. Luff P16 Mark Winterbottom/Michael Caruso

Image: Mark Horsburgh

Team 18 started with plenty of pace but battled in quali. Reynolds received plenty of battle scars in the race including a Safety Car shunt, but carried on to a surprise top 10. Winterbottom thought the same was possible, but lamented strategy.

“I think Caruso did an amazing job. He was really fast, did an amazing job, got us up to fifth or sixth, and then we didn’t take that full course yellow, which, when I was in the garage. I was playing engineer and telling them to take it, and unfortunately we didn’t. We should have probably come out fifth or sixth, didn’t take it, came out 21st, and that’s the story of our day. We just have to make those right calls at the right time and it’s so hard to pass cars here and get stuck in the train. Anyway, yeah, tough day, a little bit different in the pits might have changed the story,” Winterbottom said.

“I was really happy with how I drove. Had really good pace, seemed to make up quite a few spots and that’s the name of the game. I guess that’s what the job that was asked of me, looked after the tyres, so it was going really well,” Caruso said.

“It was a crazy day, absolutely mental, off its face. We started 17th, I got involved in a lot of accidents, Luffy got involved in a lot of accidents, and it was out of control. We ended up P8 I couldn’t believe that after, the chaos we had at the start of the day,” Reynolds said.

“It was tough out there, we got hit a few times and lost a bit of track position, but again, anytime that you can finish in the 10 hasn’t been the worst day,” Luff said.

Brad Jones Racing: P9 Bryce Fullwood/Jay Robotham P11 Andrew Heimgartner/Declan Fraser P21 Macauley Jones/Jordan Boys P22 Jaxon Evans/Dean Fiore

Image: Pace Images/Supplied/BJR

Heimgartner/Fiore were in the top five until a late safety car hurt them, but Fullwood/Robotham charged from 23rd to ninth while the #96 and #50 Camaros were hurt by incidents.

“A bit of an average day for us. Unfortunately we could not capitalise on our speed and we just had some strategy not go our way,” Heimgartner.

“We decided to take a bit of a risk on our strategy and stay out while everyone else pitted, and unfortunately got caught out by a safety car which buried us down in the pack,” Fraser said.

“What a whirlwind. I think we passed 13 cars or something close to that today. That’s basically half the field so pretty happy with that. Jay did a good job in the car,” Fullwood said.

Pretty action packed, we had a couple of battles. Some guys were getting a bit keen early on and burned the tyres out trying to make passes. But I just tried keeping it as straight as possible and drove,” Robotham said.

“I copped some damage on lap 1 in the rear and tyre life was not great and Jordan getting turned into the fence was not ideal,” Jones said.

Image: Ian Smith/Autopix

“I’m not exactly sure where we were running but we were tracking okay and then I’d just passed another driver, and he just crashed into me and turned me around which bent the car. That was annoying,” Boys said.

“Pretty average to be honest. I made a good start and felt pretty comfortable after the first stint. Handed over to Dean who as he said, got caught up in a bit of stuff and then settled into a nice rhythm. He trucked away and handed the car over to me, and unfortunately, I made a very big rookie mistake down at Dandenong Road on my outlap. I locked a brake and hit the fence,” Evans said.

“We got a little bit boxed out and caught one wide and one out for a lap, which cost us a fair few positions. But once we settled in, the car was quite strong and over the course of the two stints, it was good. No issues for me,” Fiore said.

Matt Stone Racing: P10 Cameron Hill/Cameron Crick P23 Nick Percat/Dylan O’Keeffe

Image: Mark Horsburgh

Hill and Crick were another of the big movers, progressing from 22nd to 10th despite the rookie spinning under Safety Car. Percat and O’Keeffe were in the wars and could not recover after the latter tangled with Allen.

“Roller coaster day! There was a lot of action out there and we took advantage of strategy to get us back in the game. I had a really good couple of stints towards the end and we managed to finish 10th,” Hill said.

“Really stoked to finish in the top 10, Cam obviously brought it home really strong. I was a little bit hard on myself there mid-race; we did one of the stops, came out on cold tyres, had the 80kph limiter and just made an error and spun at Turn 4,” Crick said.

“Just the one that got away for us. The car was really fast and I thought we would have been in the hunt for a podium which is great for car speed but unlucky that we didn’t quite get the result,” Percat said.

We think we could have been a chance at a podium but unfortunate what happened in my stint. The first stint felt pretty good, the second stint I just struggled to keep the tyres under the car and unfortunately was pretty weak and involved in an incident which shouldn’t have happened,” O’Keeffe said.

Dick Johnson Racing: P14 Anton De Pasquale/Tony D’Alberto P24 Will Davison/Kai Allen

De Pasquale

Image: Mark Horsburgh

After an impressive Shootout performance, De Pasquale ran second early before being muscled down the order, while the #17 suffered a flat tyre that saw Allen get rotated by O’Keeffe and then it was just about finishing.

“It’s been an extremely challenging weekend. We just have to re-set and re-group for the next race at Bathurst. Qualifying and the Shootout were great, so there are some highlights. Anton did a brilliant job top to come out first in the Shootout and put his car on the second row. In the race there was a lot happening, some things in our control and some out of our control. We’ve now got to do a better job on the things we can control. The guys did a phenomenal job to get the #17 car back on the track after a huge repair job and it was frustrating that they were only a couple of laps short of being rewarded with points for Will Davison and Kai Allen,” David Noble said.

Blanchard Racing Team: P17 Aaron Love/Aaron Cameron P18 James Courtney/Jack Perkins

Cameron Love BRT Sandown

Image: DMAC

Love suffered a heavy qualifying crash but raced hard to be 17th while a Safety Car hurt Courtney’s strategy as he slumped from 11th to the back early on and struggled to recover.

“It was obviously a tough weekend. The timing of a couple of Safety Cars really hurt James Courtney’s car and it was a tough day for Aaron Love and Aaron Cameron after a drama on Saturday. We were a bit up-and-down over the weekend, at least showing some good speed at times. So there are a few green shoots to work on. We obviously learned a lot this weekend and we’ve got a pretty good list to work on for Bathurst. There will be some car speed and operational things we can do better,” Tim Blanchard said.

Matt Chahda Motorsport: P19 Matt Chahda/Brad Vaughan

Chahda Vaughan

Image: DMAC

Despite a disrupted build up and 15s time penalty for exceeding the 80km/h speed limit, the new addition did not disgrace themselves with 19th, highlighted by the rookie’s long stint.

“We seemed really competitive. We had a 15s penalty which hurt us a little bit, but it was not like we were wobbling around at the back. We were genuinely competitive and kept up with the main name drivers which was great,” Vaughan said.

Erebus Motorsport: P20 Jack Le Brocq/Jayden Ojeda DNF Brodie Kostecki/Todd Hazelwood

Erebus was the big what if of the race with both cars in podium contention before late heartbreak. Le Brocq caused the final SC by finding the Turn 4 fence after a battle with Payne in a clash cleared by the stewards, while after bouncing back from a scary flat tyre, Kostecki rebounded towards the top 10 before a suspected electrical issue.

“It was an interesting day. We had really good speed and Juice did an awesome job. We were P4 with 15 laps to go and unfortunately got turfed into the fence,” Le Brocq said.

“Was not the best of days but car had plenty of pace. Just managed the tyres a looking promising in first stint then Todd did an awesome job,” Kostecki said.

“We deserved a better result today but that is motor racing. Had a pretty scary moment at Turn 6, thought I was going to go sailing ahead into the wall with that puncture. Whincup put up a hard fight and we suffered because of that,” Hazelwood said.

Now teams head to the big one, Bathurst on October 13.

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